Pensions Increased by Four Percent

28 July 2004

The Board of Directors fo the Pention Fund PIO/MIO of the BH Federation adopted a decision to increase the pensions vy foru percent, the Board informed the presse at the conference held yesterday at the Fund.

"Based on the available funds, we have adopted an unanimous decision to increase the quocient from 1,06 to 1,10 index points. We expect to maintain the pensions at this level by the end of this year. The payments of teh pensions for July will start, most probably, on July 31," said Zarif Safic, the Spokesperson of PIO/MIO.

Sarajevo

Safic added that the income of the Fund increased by more than four milion KM compared to last year.

"The income was greater than the expenditures, so that there was no need to use our reserves of 10 million KM at all. The number of pensioneers has risen by 4,000, due to the entry into effect of teh bilateral agreement with Serbia and Montenegro. At the moment, we have 294,761 pensioneers in our care", says Safic.

He warned, once again, of the catastrophic conseqences that may come about should B&H adopt the Memorandum of Understanding with the World Bank. He also added taht the Fund has received over 15,000 applications from pensioneers from the Republic of Srpska that want to transfer to the Federal Fund, because of the higher pensions.

According to Safic, the payments of the half a pention for October 2000 which is owed to the pensioneers, will start by the end of this week.

"Once the money is deposited on our bank account, we need 48 hours to calculate the payments. The pensioneers should expect the check with the owed money by the end of this week, but I can't still specify a concrete date", said Safic.